Owners of the Sea Vee CVA 01 and other 1:1250 60s-70s RN carriers may appreciate the following suggestions for alternate air groups, using the Cap Aero range of aircraft and others available at the Theale Ship Show (March and October- a kind of Telford for ship model collectors).
Phantoms Sea Vixens might have soldiered on into the 70s instead
1154 RN Harriers were planned for the early 70s (use
modified AV16s)
Buccaneers A swing-wing fighter/attacker was on the RN's wish-list for
the mid-70s. As most designs resembled F111/Tornado, these
can be modified to suit
US Air Group Essex class carriers are available in 1:1250. A two seat F8
Crusader was offered to the RN and could have served on
all UK carriers from about 1967 (like the French Navy). A
whole US airgroup (F8s, A4s, S2s) was offered as well
RN AEW The S3 Viking can be modified to give a rough version of
the Brough P139 AEW/COD
RN Helo Westland were working on a Sea King replacment (WG28-34)
which looked more like a fatter SH 60 than Merlin
The USN used the A4 as an anti-snooper aircraft on its CVS ships in the 60s. If the RN had kept a catapult on Bulwark/Albion it could have done the same. Alternatively Harriers/P1127s/1154s could be used.
Some fun here I think
UK 75
I'd love to play with them, but they're so small, if I breathe in too deep I'll inhale half the airwing. :-)
I actually built a couple Heller kits of the Jeanne d'Arc and Clemenceau/Foch in that scale. Its advantage is that you can't do too much detail, so they're faster builds, but many of the parts end up overscale.
What other airplanes can be found in that scale? Hunters, A-7s, F-18s, Hawks, Jaguars? And any kind of helo can land on a carrier. The mind boggles!
JoeP
On the deck of my CVA-01 HMS Furious ( see vee model):
F-18s
Buccaneers
SHARS
Based on a mid 1980s transitional air group.
Escorted by HMS Blake ( Mountford )
HMS Bristol
I will post pics when I'm able to.
QuoteI will post pics when I'm able to.
Looking forward to seeing them.
Regards,
Greg
I recently aquirred a beat up Triang minic HMS Bulwark CVL. I've stripped the remains of the old paint job and repainted it. Since I'm reconfiguring for duty @ 1982, I've painted the flight deck on speculation. The airgroup is a mix of SHARS, Sea kings, and, considering no ski jump, adding Gannet AEWs as well..... Any thoughts as to adding Gannets would be feasible????
It would be something to add, say- Buccaneers to the airgroup but I'm not sure if a Catapult, ship length would have supported it- even in small numbers. in 1982- I'd think even a small detachmnet of 4-6 Buccs would have been a signifcant punch during the Falklands campaign.
Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.
( will try to post pics this spring based on feedback )
Well in 1982 the Royal Navy had a team of engineers crawling all over Bulwark to get her ship ship and ready for sea, whilst another batch were busy seeing what Gannet AEW aircraft remained. I Guess the idea was for Bulwark to be be fitted with an airfield type arrestor wires and use a conventional axial deck take off possibly assisted by RATOG gear (No time to find and fit a catapult !!!).
However her material condition meant more effort was needed to get her shipshape and the crew were being assigned to Illustrious as Swan & Hunter had pulled out all the stops to get her finished early. The dockyard fitteres were reassigned to getting the older frigates back into service as a stop gap to cover the fleet losses and keep up numbers. Some of the Gannet people were assigned to get the Seaking AEW up and running (another war mod originally devised in the 70's and pressed into action in a couple of months !!!)
Bulwark would probably have carried what other replacement Harriers there were left for the other two carrier and acted as a mother ship for the helicopters in addition to the Gannets.
Losing Invincible or Hermes would likely have meant dropping the work on the old frigates in favor of Bulwark.
I suspect they would have skipped fixing the catapult and arrestor gear in favor of getting a flat deck down there ASAP.
Now let's see some photos!
JoeP
The photos will come shortly after the snow melts to where I can get down my driveway where Bulwark and the SHARS are stored! I'm thining of ordering some buccs and Gannets to add to it..... would Gannet AEW and say 4-6 Buccs be feasible for my Wif circa 182????? Pics of my seeevee CVA-01 HMS Furious, HMS Bristol and HMS Tiger TG will follow also w/ SHARS, BUccs, F/A-18s for air group
parody- " it's my air grup and I'll fly what I want to,,," : ) circa mid 1980s....
CVA 01 HMS Furious ( seevee models) w/ CAP Aero F/A-18s, Buccaneers, SHARS
Also- HMS Blake and HMS Bristol
Also- does anyone here know of other manufacturers of modern 1:1200 aircraft?
I've purchased some Mountford SHARS but they are made of brittle plastic and either had broken/damaged in package or broke when I tried to cut them from the sprues ( 1 in 5 ac is not good :angry:
I thought i read somewhere on the net that someone was offerring 3 F/A 18s painted for @ $18.00..... anyone know who that might be?